Balloon Space Tourism Aims for 2014 Launch

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Not all space tourism is rocket science. A newly successful test
of a balloon could allow paying human customers to enjoy stunning
Earth views and the weightless astronaut experience by 2014.

The test balloon carried a humanoid robot up to an altitude of
almost 20 miles (32 kilometers) on Nov. 12 — just a few miles shy
of where skydiver Felix Baumgartner leaped from during his
" space
dive " in October. Startup Zero 2 Infinity wants to eventually
offer hours of flight time for space tourists to do whatever they
want in a near-space environment.

"Some people will want to tweet," said Jose Mariano
Lopez-Urdiales, founder and CEO of Zero 2 Infinity. "Some will
want to put down a carpet and pray to mecca. Some people will
want to eat their favorite buffalo wings while they're up there."

The Spanish company already has waitlist customers who paid an
early deposit of almost $13,000 (10,000 euros) as the first
installment out of a total ticket price of $143,000 (110,000
euros). It has also attracted funding from the world's
second-largest balloon manufacturer, Spain's third-largest bank,
and several angel investors by proving its concept step-by-step
and by relying on proven helium balloon technologies.

Flight testing took place at an Air Force base near Virgen del
Camino in Spain. But Lopez-Urdiales envisions future flights
launching from many other locations in the country.

The balloon experience

A typical predawn flight would take several hours to reach
maximum altitude, so that passengers could enjoy seeing the sun
rise against the blackness of space and see the curvature of the
planet Earth. Luckily, the balloon would not need to get anywhere
near the 62-mile (100 km) altitude that marks the official edge
of space for its riders to enjoy stellar views.

"You would spend two hours at the floating altitude of 36
kilometers (22 miles)," Lopez-Urdiales told TechNewsDaily. "We
could do it higher, but it would not make any difference, because
you already see the same visual cues at 39 kilometers or even 100
kilometers." [ Video:
Near-Space Balloon Soars in Flight Test ]

Getting back down would mean cutting the cord between the balloon
and the enclosed passenger capsule. Passengers could experience
about 40 to 60 seconds of weightlessness during free fall, before
parachutes and a parafoil carried them safely down to Earth.

The recent test flight gave Zero 2 Infinity its first successful
test of a balloon capsule large enough to carry humans, but only
if the two people spent the entire trip lying down. An earlier
flight test scheduled in May was canceled after
wind gusts damaged the test balloon.

Robot test pilots

Future versions of the balloons, called "bloons" by the company,
would have donut- or bagel-shaped capsules with plenty of
standing room for two pilots and four passengers. But the test
capsule proved just right for the humanoid robot named Nao — made
by Aldebaran Robotics — that stands at knee-height compared to
adult humans.

The robot rode as a passive passenger, but could someday become
an active pilot that tests the controls and life-support
technologies meant for humans.

"Little by little, we're teaching it how to pilot, but that's at
a very early stage," Lopez-Urdiales explained. "The idea in the
future is to have
humanoid robots testing future complex aerospace vehicles."

The company has almost finished building a bigger test balloon
that could comfortably carry two people standing up. That larger
balloon could make an attempt at breaking the manned
high-altitude balloon record set in the 1960s — a record that
requires the pilot to take off and land in the balloon. (Space
diver Baumgartner intentionally disqualified himself by leaping
out of his high-flying balloon.)

The inner journey

But Zero 2 Infinity doesn't just want to make money.
Lopez-Urdiales envisions his balloons carrying scientific
experiments or scientists high into Earth's atmosphere. His
inspiration for creating the startup company came from his dad,
an astrophysicist who worked on an experiment that went with the
Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn's moon Titan.

"I was growing up around balloons, rockets and telescopes,"
Lopez-Urdiales said. "My dad tested a Huygens scientific
instrument on a high-altitude balloon."

The balloon space tourism's relatively more affordable price tag
could also open the eyes of many more people through the
"overview effect," Lopez-Urdiales said. Frank White, a
communications director at Harvard's Kennedy School of
Government, coined the term to describe how astronauts gained a
better appreciation of global and environmental issues after
seeing the Earth surrounded by the darkness of space.

"That's probably the biggest benefit
private spaceflight will offer to civilians and members of
the public," Lopez-Urdiales said. "The overview effect is
personal experience, but then you share it. I think it goes a
much longer way than bragging rights."